Christian Ministry and Social Work

As a Christian, I rely on the leading of the Lord to guide my focus, thoughts and forward movement in life. This reliance has never steered me wrong in 35 years after consciously making the decision to follow Jesus, and now it is true more than ever as I embark on the journey of becoming a Christian scholar.

At age 52 as of this day (3/21/2018), Social Work scholarship is a second career, the first being a professional classical vocalist and church musician. Perhaps I should say Social Work is a “third career”, as carrying and birthing my four children, two sets of boy-girl twins, and focusing upon their nurture and development during their preschool years was a career for certain that I thoroughly enjoyed and will never regret focusing my life upon! As a wise social work supervisor said to me just before I left my job in 2003 to fully focus on my first pregnancy at home: “Work will always be there for you to return to later.” I was 37 years old. A late bloomer in many ways!

At age 50, I returned to work. I joined my husband of 30 years (a gifted Anglican priest, teacher and pastor ordained in 1994), in beginning to hold church services in our home in May of 2015 following an unexpected change in his employment. This change, while difficult to navigate at the time, ultimately freed us up to think outside of the box for our financial and vocational futures. The church, All Souls Anglican, (under the Nigerian Diocese of CANA East and Bishop Julian Dobbs) is soon entering its 4th year of weekly Sunday worship with a small core of committed members who actively live out their Christian faith in authenticity and community with us. All Souls’ primary focus is to reach out to the hurting and needy in our community – that often includes each other, but also anyone who would like to come and “hang out”, share a meal, and in some cases, require temporary lodging and spiritual care to assess their next step. Pastoral Care and Social Work, it turns out, are two very compatible professions.

I was surfing Wikipedia earlier today as I was looking for information about a new Episcopal priest being installed in our community, a female. It got me thinking about the subject of women's ordination in the Episcopal church and I thought I would look up information about the famous Philadelphia Eleven, the 11 female deacons that were ordained by rogue bishops in 1974. Wikipedia detailed each of the 11 and gave a biography of each - several had, in addition to seeking Holy Orders, also obtained their Master of Social Work degree (MSW). I thought this was interesting and not surprising! I would like to study further the connection between religion/spirituality and the "call" to the profession of Social Work.

When I began my own journey towards my MSW degree,  I did so fairly blindly.  I mean, did I even know what a social worker was?  An influential woman in my life who was my counselor was a clinical social worker.  I shared with her my desire to be a counselor to others and she encouraged me to get my MSW.  Almost immediately as I began the coursework, I saw that, although one's spiritual life was not a centerpiece of social work education per se, the connection for me was obvious.  I saw that social work was actually "ministry" as I understood it.  While being a political conservative put me in a minority camp as far as the social work profession is concerned, the common ground I share with my profession is care and concern for all people, all of the human race.

I am reading “Race and Culture” by Dr. Thomas Sowell. Although he has been well-known in the conservative community for decades, I have only recently, in the last week actually, discovered him. He is my new hero, as I have been searching for the way to articulate my reactions and concern over what I hear from the Social Work community regarding racism.   The providential manner in which I came in contact with his writings will be the subject for my next blog post.